Movie Review: Deadline (1987)

Also Known As: War Zone; Witness In The War Zone  

Genre: War Drama  

Director: Nathaniel Gutman  

Starring: Christopher Walken  

Running Time: 100 minutes  

Synopsis: The setting is 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to oust the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). American television reporter Don Stevens (Christopher Walken) arrives in Beirut and meets Mike Jessop (Hywel Bennett), another veteran jaded foreign correspondent. Don's plan to sit out the war drinking in his hotel room is disrupted when he is selected to interview a high-ranking PLO official, who makes a bombshell announcement. Don finds himself at the centre of a storm in a lawless city, with numerous factions locked into a volatile, violent, and increasingly vicious conflict.

What Works Well: This relatively low budget Israeli production carries echoes of other journalists-in-war dramas from the era, including Salvador, Under Fire, and The Year Of Living Dangerously. Director Nathaniel Gutman captures Beirut's anarchy during the Israeli invasion, with the potential for death around every corner and various militias competing for control of destroyed city blocks. The script just about maintains coherence, impressively capturing shadowy machinations while drawing upon actual events including the PLO withdrawal from Beirut, the explosion that assassinated a president-elect, and subsequent massacres at Palestinian refugee camps.  

What Does Not Work As Well: Christopher Walken is a lanky presence as a generally disinterested reporter, but the characterizations are flimsy and the cast underpowered. Some of the plot points are beyond credible, and in the second half Stevens appears to cheat death or benefit from wild coincidences every few minutes. The budget limitations are generally patched-up, but narrative choppiness and sub-par audio quality persist.

Key Quote:

Mike Jessop (talking to Don Sevens): This is Beirut. No one needs a reason to kill anyone. Here you don't kill who you want. You kill who you can.

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Movie Review: Dune: Part Two (2024)

Genre: Epic Sci-Fi  

Director: Denis Villeneuve  

Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Christopher Walken, Javier Bardem, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Charlotte Rampling  

Running Time: 166 minutes  

Synopsis: Having survived the ambush that wiped out the House of Atreides and killed his father, Paul (Timothée Chalamet) embeds with the Fremen tribe, native to the desert-like Arrakis planet that harbours the much coveted spice. Fremen leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem) believes Paul is the saviour predicted by prophecies, and Paul's pregnant mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) is anointed Reverend Mother. Fremen warrior Chani (Zendaya) is a sceptic, but nevertheless develops a relationship with Paul. As the evil Harkonnen exploit the planet, Paul leads an effective resistance and is joined by his Atreides mentor Gurney (Josh Brolin). The Harkonnen respond by appointing the psychotic Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) to crush their fledgling enemies.

What Works Well: Remarkably, this sequel matches the original for scope, ambition, majestic visuals, and rich storytelling. Denis Villeneuve maintains control of a sprawling and imaginative narrative, this chapter focusing on a rebellion, the tension between folklore and pragmatism, and the consequences of individual actions, with no shortage of thrills, romance, and deception. Paul is certain that untold misery will be unleashed should he choose to step into leadership, and yet the current trajectory of annihilation and evil prevailing is also clear. Every faction has sub-factions and internal conflicts, every agenda has a counter-agenda, and the across-the-universe tapestry is tightly woven into epic duels for control of the future.

What Does Not Work As Well: At 2 hours and 45 minutes, this is another stamina test, made more stressful by a complex make-believe world that throws up obscure names and concepts last introduced hours ago.

Key Quote:

Paul: The visions are clear now. I see possible futures, all at once. Our enemies are all around us, and in so many futures they prevail. But I do see a way, there is a narrow way through.

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Movie Review: Last Man Standing (1996)

Genre: Action  

Director: Walter Hill  
Starring: Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken, Bruce Dern  

Running Time: 101 minutes  

Synopsis: West Texas in the 1930s, during the prohibition era. Mercenary drifter John Smith (Bruce Willis) arrives at the small and mostly abandoned town of Jericho. He finds the Doyle (Irish) and Strozzi (Italian) gangs locked in a battle for control of the illegal booze trade from Mexico. A dual-handgun expert, Smith decides to profit by selling his services to both sides. The ineffective Sheriff Ed Galt (Bruce Dern) does little to stop him, but Doyle's Tommy gun wielding assassin Hickey (Christopher Walken) does not appreciate Smith's interventions.

What Works Well: This credited remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (which was also unofficially remade as A Fistful Of Dollars) enjoys a lost-in-time setting of a middle-of-nowhere near-ghost town predominantly occupied by gang members. Majestic cinematography (by Lloyd Ahern), soulful music (by Ry Cooder), and natty outfits add texture to the aesthetics and the quest-for-a-cause theme. Director Walter Hill stages the short and sharp action scenes with balletic guns a-blazing ferocity.

What Does Not Work As Well: The characters appear to lack belief and soullessly go through the pre-ordained motions, not helped by excessive narration over-reaching for noir cynicism. Christopher Walken and Bruce Dern are given relatively little to do, leaving other, less interesting cast members to spar against Bruce Willis' stranger-in-a-strange-land. The narrative flow is occasionally choppy, suggesting some important material was abandoned on the editing room floor.

Key Quote:

Hickey (to Smith): I don't want to die in Texas. Chicago, maybe... but not Texas. You can meet me there if you like.



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Movie Review: Eddie The Eagle (2015)

Genre: Biographical Sports Drama  

Director: Dexter Fletcher  

Starring: Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman, Christopher Walken  

Running Time: 106 minutes  

Synopsis: Despite physical ailments and no natural talent, Englishman Michael "Eddie" Edwards (Taron Egerton) grows up dreaming of becoming an Olympic athlete. His mother is sympathetic, but his blue collar father scoffs at his ambition. With the 1988 Calgary winter games looming, Eddie stumbles upon ski jumping and realizes Britain has no athletes in the sport. He relocates to a training facility in Germany, where he encounters the scorn of other jumpers, but also meets former US Olympian Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), who never fulfilled his potential but may now be able to coach Eddie.

What Works Well: This is a traditional and impossible-to-dislike feel-good sports biography, celebrating the spirit of participation and the journey of determination as much more important than results. Taron Egerton brings a naive likeability to the role of Eddie, and director Dexter Fletcher deploys self-deprecating humour to acknowledge the more bizarre aspects of an unlikely quest. The ski jumping scenes convey the dramatic thrill of a gravity-defying sport. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The complete absence of any original or unexpected content underlines the embrace of safe and old-fashioned storytelling, with Hugh Jackman exceptionally familiar as a natural talent who swerved away from success and into the bottle. A faux triumphant music score does not help, nor does the gnawing sense that the celebration of loophole-exploiting mediocrity is simply undeserved pomp.

Conclusion: The spirit of an eagle, the achievements of a warbler.



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Movie Review: At Close Range (1986)

Genre: Crime Drama  

Director: James Foley  

Starring: Sean Penn, Christopher Walken, Mary Stuart Masterson, Christopher Penn, Tracey Walter, David Strathairn  

Running Time: 115 minutes  

Synopsis: The setting is rural Pennsylvania in the late 1970s. Shiftless youth Brad Whitewood Jr. (Sean Penn) starts a romance with local girl Terry (Mary Stuart Masterson), and reconnects with his absentee father Brad Sr. (Christopher Walken), who leads a hardened gang engaged in industrial scale theft. Eager to raise money to start a new life with Terry, Brad Jr. is drawn into his father's orbit, with unexpected consequences for his dim brother Tommy (Christopher Penn) and their group of friends.

What Works Well: Based on actual events involving the Johnston crime clan, this is a brooding father-son drama bathed in lyrical aesthetics and moody characterizations. The cinematography (by Juan Ruiz Anchía) and artistic lighting create landscapes of forgotten Americana where youth routinely resort to alcohol and drugs to escape adult-created unattractive realities. Christopher Walken dominates his scenes with the dead-eyed charm of a cold-hearted career criminal, and a muscular Sean Penn brings a winning combination of likeability and intensity in search of upgraded prospects. The opening notes of Madonna's Live To Tell provide ominous soundtrack underpinnings.

What Does Not Work As Well: For long durations, the content is sparse and the pace slow. Director James Foley enjoys stylistic immersions in scene after scene of attitude setting, the lack of narrative thrust increasingly apparent. As a result, the exclamatory events in the final 20 minutes are more of an ill-fitting jolt than an enhancement.

Conclusion: Ferocity as a feeling rather than a force.



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Movie Review: Wild Mountain Thyme (2020)

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Director: John Patrick Shanley

Starring: Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, Christopher Walken, Jon Hamm

Running Time: 102 minutes

Synopsis: In rural Ireland, Anthony (Jamie Dornan) and Rosemary (Emily Blunt) grew up on adjacent farms. Rosemary has been waiting all her life for Anthony to express his love and propose marriage, but he is awkward and hesitant. When Anthony's ailing father Tony (Christopher Walken) hints that US-based cousin Adam (Jon Hamm) may inherit the farm instead of Anthony, Rosemary has to more proactively define her future.

What Works Well: The idyllic beauty of the Irish countryside and the farming way of life saturate a quirky romance, embracing Anthony and Rosemary as a non-traditional would-be couple. Director John Patrick Shanley also wrote the witty script based on his play, and adopts suitably modest pacing as Rosemary is gradually nudged to a place of passionate courage. Secondary characters animate the background and underline the culture-building sense of community and family history.

What Does Not Work As Well: Ireland appears to be stuck in olden times, and while they admirably invest in their roles, both Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan (in their late 30s) may be too old for these characters. The best scenes are also the talkiest, the stage origins unconcealed and the sophisticated banter inconsistent with an environment of earthy genuineness. The final narrative twist is quite bewildering, and the predetermined ending then arrives in a flustered rush.

Conclusion: Beautiful to look at, but the terrain is also uneven.

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Movie Review: The Milagro Beanfield War (1988)

Genre: Whimsical Dramedy

Director: Robert Redford

Starring: Chuck Vennera, Ruben Blades, Sonia Braga, John Heard, Christopher Walken, Melanie Griffith

Running Time: 117 minutes

Synopsis: In the tiny New Mexico community of Milagro, locals are resigned to the imminent arrival of a gentrification project financed by tycoon Ladd Devine (Richard Bradford). But farmer Joe Mondragon (Chick Vennera) takes a stand by diverting water to his long-dormant beanfield, the one remaining unsold plot. Activist Ruby (Sonia Braga) seizes on Joe's initiative to mobilize the community and recruits reluctant news publisher Charlie Bloom (John Heard) to the cause. Devine imports Sherriff Montana (Christopher Walken) as an intimidator, while local law officer Montoya (Ruben Blades) tries to keep the lid on bubbling tensions.

What Works Well: Gorgeous cinematography (Robbie Greenberg), playful music (Dave Grusin), and a quirky sense of humour underpin this backwater culture clash. The theme of the new threatening the old in the capitalistic pursuit of profit provides a sturdy narrative foundation, but director Robert Redford maintains a light touch exemplified by Carlos Riquelme as the eccentric old-timer Amarante. He lives somewhere between the past and the present in the constant company of his pig (and a ghost), winking at life's compounding absurdities.

What Does Not Work As Well: Several characters promise much but ultimately just add clutter, including appearances by Melanie Griffith (superfluous), Daniel Stern (lost), and Julie Carmen (unfortunately underused). The ending creates numerous gaps in a rush to rudimentary cheerleading.

Conclusion: The winds of change can blow in unpredictably gorgeous directions.



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Movie Review: Man On Fire (2004)

A revenge action thriller centred on a child kidnapping, Man On Fire is gripping, violent, and stylish.

With Mexico City experiencing a high rate of abductions for ransom, businessman Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony) and his wife Lisa (Radha Mitchell) hire Creasy (Denzel Washington) as a bodyguard for their young daughter Pita (Dakota Fanning). Creasy is ex-military, but now has a drinking problem. He remains friends with Paul Rayburn (Christopher Walken), a former colleague who runs a security firm.

The dour and despondent Creasy gets off on the wrong foot with the talkative and curious Pita, but they then establish a deep bond of friendship. When heavily-armed kidnappers do target Pita, Creasy is unable to save her despite killing four assailants and being shot several times. While he recuperates, Samuel and lawyer Jordan Kalfus (Mickey Rourke) handle the ransom negotiations. But with corruption reaching the highest levels of the police force, the deal goes bad. Creasy vows revenge on all those who harmed his young friend.

Directed by Tony Scott from a Brian Helgeland script adapting A.J. Quinnell's 1980 novel, Man On Fire is a standard revenge story spiced-up by strong character development, hyperactive cinematography, and star power. While the man-on-a-mission-wasting-bad-guys premise offers little that is new, here the people are made to matter with smart pacing choices.

The first hour patiently introduces the flawed and self-aware Creasy, the smart and precocious Pita (short for Lupita), and the connection between them. At first she irritates him but then he helps her develop competitive swimming techniques and becomes a friend and trusted mentor. Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning invest genuine humanity into the roles, adding a potent emotional punch to the subsequent violence.

Once the killing starts it does not stop, Creasy working his way up the criminal food chain from foot soldiers to mid-level operatives, corrupt officials and finally the masterminds. He is calm, methodical and outwardly emotionless, dismantling a shadowy organization consisting of thugs and sleazoids hiding behind uniforms and officious titles. All the bad guys call themselves professionals, but Creasy demonstrates what the term really means. The usual methods of torture are deployed to expeditiously extract the necessary information in time for the next rocket-propelled grenade to impart the required damage. And along the way a conspiracy twist is revealed, adding internecine venom.

Creasy is helped by a couple of locals to balance out the Mexican portrayals. Rachel Ticotin is reporter Mariana Garcia Guerrero, eager to expose government corruption and incompetence, and Giancarlo Giannini plays Miguel Manzano, a federal police director willing to provide assistance in exchange for the right perks.

The Mexico City locations add vibrant authenticity, while Scott's insistence on manic visual flair and demented editing borders on nauseating but achieves the intended kinetic buzz. Man On Fire is both cool and blazing.



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Movie Review: Click (2006)

A social fantasy comedy with lessons about life, Click provides passable humour and some genuine warmth despite the predictable message fare.

Michael Newman (Adam Sandler) is an architect working hard to impress his insufferable boss John Ammer (David Hasselhoff), but at the expense of neglecting his wife Donna (Kate Beckinsale) and two kids Ben and Samantha. Michael also has little time for his parents Theodore and Trudy (Henry Winkler and Julie Kavner), and believes all his hard work will pay off when he is promoted to partner, but in the meantime life is passing him by.

Michael goes shopping for a universal remote control, and eccentric salesperson Morty (Christopher Walken) gives him a brand new unit for free, on the condition that it cannot be returned. Michael discovers that with this remote control he can mute and pause those around him, and fast forward through tedious parts of his life including chores and arguments, jumping ahead to trouble-free and pain-free moments of success. But soon the remote control starts acting on its own based on memorizing Michael's previous wishes, and he loses control of his life.

Mixing familiar elements from movies as diverse as It's A Wonderful Life, Groundhog Day and The Family Man, Click is unambiguous about pushing the message of life as a journey, not a destination. By the standards of Adam Sandler, this is a reasonably controlled and well-packaged effort, mixing his trademark juvenile bathroom humour with plenty of moments lamenting the personal fallout from the single-minded drive to achieve perceived career success.

Beyond the family-first mantra, the film's other theme is simple but also eternal: personal and professional life is a mix of good and bad, and there is no joy to be had in moments of triumph without the effort to get there.

For all the message-heavy emphasis, the crassness demanded by Sandler's fans is still here: director Frank Coraci delivers a succession of dogs dry-humping a large stuffed toy throughout the film. Farts in the face stand proudly alongside kicks in the nuts and pull-down-the-trousers antics to satisfy the child brains in the audience.

But proving again that when surrounded by enough talent on both sides of the camera Sandler can do better, Click also seeks out tender moments of reflection and sorrowful hindsight between fathers and sons. It's not subtle and the performances err on the obnoxious side (Walken and Hasselhoff the prime culprits), but Michael's fantastical adventure with the magical remote control has its heart in the right place.

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Movie Review: The Rundown (2003)

An action-packed buddy comedy adventure, The Rundown (also known as Welcome To The Jungle) is mindless fun, and often much better than it has any right to be.

In Los Angeles, Beck (Dwayne Johnson, credited as The Rock) is a hard hitting but soft-at-heart "retrieval expert" (bounty hunter) looking to get out of the business and open his own restaurant. His boss Billy Walker (William Lucking) offers him one last job with a big payoff: retrieve Billy's wayward son Travis (Seann William Scott) from the wilds of the Amazon and bring him home.

Beck travels to the Brazilian jungle, connects with pilot Declan (Ewen Bremner), and finds Travis in the ramshackle mining town built by nasty businessman Hatcher (Christopher Walken) to exploit local resources. Travis has no interest in surrendering to Beck, as he is on his own quest to find the mythical El Gato de Diablo treasure, and trying to sweet talk bartender Mariana (Rosario Dawson) into helping him. Beck's assignment gets much more complicated when Hatcher demands that Travis lead him to El Gato's location, and Mariana reveals her own agenda.

A big budget production lavishly co-funded by WWE Films and directed by Peter Berg, The Rundown features Johnson relatively early in his transition from popular professional wrestler to action film superstar. The film celebrates its high ridiculous quotient, and locks into an action packed, irreverent groove.

The showcase fight sequences arrive at regular 10 minute intervals, with Beck's insistence that he does not use guns channeling the brutality into inventive one-against-many brawls. The multiple fracases are artistically choreographed and coherently handled, with an ever-present  shadow of a smile anchoring the flying bodies and flailing limbs. In an apt summary of the film's mindset, one fight scene finds Beck trapped upside down on a swinging rope in the heart of the jungle, his leg dry-humped by a crazed wild monkey.

As for the plot and the story, The Rundown is a combination buddy movie, treasure hunt, social justice comedy adventure. Enough disparate stuff is thrown onto the screen to ensure something kinetic is always going on, and Berg does not linger in any one place long enough for the preposterous attitude to deflate. The jungle colours are vivid, the settings teaming with sweaty life forms from both the human and animal kingdoms.

Seann William Smith's take on Travis is irritating enough to get under Beck's skin, and while Christopher Walken mails in his performance as prime evildoer Hatcher, his presence lends heft to the exploitation sub-plot. As for Johnson, he lumbers through the movie carving out his screen persona, a slightly more emotive Schwarzenegger without the accent but with a dash of vulnerable self-awareness.

The Rundown never wavers from its mission to deliver satisfyingly silly entertainment, and yes, for the final mop-up Beck does yield and pick up guns -- many guns.

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Movie Review: Heaven's Gate (1980)

An epic and lyrical western, Heaven's Gate is nearly as bad as its catastrophic reputation.

Twenty years after graduating from Harvard, James Averill (Kris Kristofferson) is the Marshal of Johnson County, Wyoming. Poor European immigrants are arriving in large numbers to settle and farm the land, creating tensions with a cattlemen's Association led by Frank Canton (Sam Waterston). James' intellectual classmate from Harvard William Irvine (John Hurt) is part of Canton's entourage, but frequently drunk. In the town of Casper, a large number of men assemble, recruited as hired guns by the Association. A target list of 125 settlers is drawn up and a $50 bounty is offered on each head.

Nathan Champion (Christopher Walken) is one of the gunmen, but he tries to scare off the settlers rather than kill them. He also competes with James for the attention of Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert), the local whore and James' lover. Local businessman John L. Bridges (Jeff Bridges) allies himself with the settlers. As Canton's men start to hunt down their targets, the immigrants have to find ways to fight back and the situation escalates towards an all-out war.

Written and directed by Michael Cimino and loosely based on the actual events of the Johnson County War, Heaven's Gate is legendary for all the wrong reasons. Four times over budget, one year late, beset by production problems including rampant animal cruelty, ridiculously long at 3 hours and 40 minutes, and ultimately a financial disaster that hastened the demise of studio United Artists, the film comprehensively ended the New Hollywood era, killing off the concept of celebrated directors having unchecked creative control.

Cimino, fresh off the unexpected success of The Deer Hunter, appeared intent on out-doing Francis Ford Coppola. He exhibited ultra-egotistical on-set behaviour and seemed to measure his achievements by length of film, ending the production at 1.3 million feet (220 hours) to exceed Coppola's Apocalypse Now. The Heaven's Gate music is also clearly derived from The Godfather theme.

All of which would be forgiven and excused if the final on-screen product was any good, but it's not. Heaven's Gate has perhaps 90 minutes of story and 130 minutes of insufferable bloat. Countless scenes contribute nothing to the narrative, and every scene, whether relevant or not, runs for many minutes longer than necessary. The Harvard graduation and waltz, the rollerblading dance, the endless scenes of agitated crowds, the cockfight and the epilogue are some of the more famous examples of the bilge suffocating the film.

To add to the misery, despite the mammoth length the film is fundamentally lacking in any character depth or development. Averill, Champion and Ella are the three main characters, and they remain plastic creations throughout, generating no emotion or empathy, stock passengers in their own story. Kristofferson, Walken and Huppert can all be fine actors, but they drown in nothingness where time and space stand still. Plenty of deathly slow scenes come and go with barely any dialogue, the characters part of the scenery or worse, swallowed by the armies of extras.

Filmed entirely on location and mostly in Montana, the film carries a sickly brown-yellow tinge throughout, taking away from the beautiful epic and rustic settings and the elaborate framing. The sound quality is frequently atrocious, with large stretches of dialogue inaudible and incomprehensible. The ill-defined immigrants speak and shout in their own language, sometimes for minutes on end, with no subtitles.

The final hour does pick up as Cimino finally bears down and the conflict erupts into the open, but redemption is out of reach. Heaven's Gate is an arduous ode to unchecked self-admiration.

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Movie Review: The Dogs Of War (1980)

A war drama and thriller, The Dogs Of War explores the murky world of mercenaries but despite some good moments lacks suspense, depth, and action.

After barely escaping from a chaotic Central American war zone, mercenary James Shannon (Christopher Walken) is hired by go-between Roy Endean (Hugh Millais) to conduct a reconnaissance mission in Zangaro, an African country rich in natural resources. The business interests behind Endean want to know if Zangaro's dictator General Kimba can be overthrown. Pretending to be a bird photographer, Shannon travels to the capital city of Clarence to gather intelligence, and there he meets documentarian Alan North (Colin Blakely).

But Shannon soon falls foul of Kimba's security men and is captured and brutally tortured. In prison he meets Dr. Okoye (Winston Ntshona), a principled leader and ex-Presidential candidate. After being thrown out of the country Shannon recuperates and tries to reconcile with his wife Jessie (JoBeth Williams). Endean reappears, this time offering a lot of money for the overthrow of Kimba. Shannon turns to his long-time colleague Drew (Tom Berenger) and together they start assembling the men and equipment needed for the mission.

After the international success of The Day Of The Jackal (1973), author Frederick Forsyth's other conspiracy-laced thrillers trickled into movie adaptations. The Odessa File arrived in 1974, The Dogs Of War in 1980 and The Fourth Protocol in 1987. None of the films were able to replicate the success of The Day Of The Jackal, as Forsyth's style of quick-frying character depth in favour of meticulous mission planning details proved difficult to translate to the screen.

Forsyth allegedly participated in real-life coup planning targeting Equatorial Guinea (here translated to the fictional Zangaro), either as book research or as a genuine enterprise, so he more than knows what goes into covert private military adventurism. The Dogs Of War contains a few highlights, but generally suffers in a void of drama and tension.

A directed by John Irvin, the film arrives at the nuts and bolts of planning the coup in bad shape: Shannon is a robotic, annoyed presence, unable to hold the film's centre. His colleagues and cohorts are faceless and totally undefined, a bunch of men transacting deals for weapons and ammunition across Europe with other shady businessmen involved in the underworld of the armament trade. The film is a mechanical, uninvolving experience, mildly curious but too emotionally cold.

The better moments include the opening sequence, an impressive disorganized escape from a raucous Central American battlefield. The climax, about 90 tired minutes later, is a noisy battle as Shannon and his men assault Kimba's compound. Although the final spike in action is generally well handled, all the firing is in one direction, sapping away the tension of the attack, and the battle tactics are never explained.

Cinematographer Jack Cardiff does his best to elevate the visuals: both firefights jump off the screen with kinetic energy and some artistic zing, but even more impressive is the ramshackle appearance of the capital city Clarence (actually Belize City), Irvin and Cardiff capturing the chaos and menace of a sweaty third world city convulsing under the untrained guns of a dictator's amateur army and his security agents.

Christopher Walken is not well served, neither by the script nor by the directing. His line delivery is strained, overly clipped, and aggressive. For a man who is supposed to live in the shadows, his combative behaviour is perfect for attracting the wrong attention. Colin Blakely adds support as a filmmaker growing tired of hellhole assignments, but the rest of the cast is too ill-defined to matter.

The Dogs Of War only rarely wags its tails, and lacks both bark and bite.

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Movie Review: Seven Psychopaths (2012)

A dark comedy, Seven Psychopaths contains fragments of good ideas but quickly dissolves into an uncoordinated mishmash.

In Los Angeles Marty (Colin Farrell) is a struggling and hard drinking writer with a vague idea for a screenplay about seven psychopaths. His lively best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) tries to help by pitching wild story ideas and placing newspaper ads inviting psychopaths to step forwards and tell their story. On the side Billy operates a pet abduction business with his partner in crime Hans (Christopher Walken).

Billy and Hans choose the wrong victim when they abduct Bonny, a dog belonging to violent gang boss Charlie (Woody Harrelson). This sets off a chain of events placing Hans' hospitalized wife Myra in grave danger, and forces Billy to reveal his true nature as a showdown in the desert looms.

An attempt to combine the irreverence of In Bruges with a Pulp Fiction inspired tone, Seven Psychopaths is as patchy and unsatisfying as Marty's perpetually unfinished screenplay. Directed and written by Martin McDonagh (who also directed In Bruges starring Farrell), the film is incohesive, featuring various sketches that sometimes stand up nicely on their own but never gel into a meaningful whole.

Sub-stories include a Quaker who avenges his daughter's murder; hitmen who are themselves terminated while awaiting their victim; a man named Zachariah Rigby (Tom Waits) with a colourful history of murdering serial killers; and a Vietnamese priest in a motel room with a prostitute but with killing on his mind. These stories may or may not be related to anything going on in Marty's real life, but they come across as McDonagh collecting partial screenplay concepts, throwing them at the wall and hoping something sticks.

With no shortage of style, violence, profanity, blood and gore, Seven Psychopaths ends with a thematically muddled climax, angry psychopaths on the loose firing guns in all directions but still not hitting the narrative target.

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Movie Review: A View To A Kill (1985)

The fourteenth James Bond spy adventure and the seventh to feature Roger Moore, A View To Kill is a strong contender for the worst Bond movie of all time.

After recovering a microchip from a dead British agent in Siberia and escaping his Soviet pursuers, James Bond (Roger Moore) is asked to investigate the activities of industrialist Max Zorin (Christopher Walken). Working with Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee) Bond uncovers a plot to illegally juice racing horses by implanting adrenaline-releasing devices in their legs.

Bond tangles with Zorin's assassin May Day (Grace Jones) and stumbles onto the mysterious Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) accepting a cheque for $5 million from Zorin. Much worse is to come: Zorin, who is revealed to be a KGB-created psychopath, has intentions to corner the global microchip market by triggering a massive earthquake along the San Andreas fault to destroy Silicon Valley. Bond and Sutton team up to try and stop a series of underground explosions designed to kill thousands.

By far the best thing about the film is the Duran Duran tile song. Directed by John Glen, A View To A Kill is a slipshod, lethargic effort.  At 57 years old Moore is now decades beyond being convincing as a dashing spy involved in high-stakes physically-demanding battles, so the stuntmen again take centre stage. Moore is reduced to ludicrous close-ups, where he generally winces his way through trouble.

Much worse are the romantic interludes, now bordering on disgusting. Bond couples with British agent Kimberley Jones (actress Mary Stavin, 28 years old), KGB Agent Pola Ivanova (actress Fiona Fullerton, 29 years old), and Grace Jones as May Day (37 years old). The main girl and love interest is the unfortunately talentless Tanya Roberts (30 years old). The average discrepancy in age between Bond and his four sexual conquests is 26 years; Bond was comfortably old enough to be the father of all these women.

The plot may have partially saved the film, but by now the reservoir of ideas has run bone dry. About half the film is consumed with a story about microchips embedded in race horses; this turns out to be next to irrelevant. Zorin's plan to destroy Silicon valley is provided about one minute of exposition before the action moves to a nondescript mining site where explosives are being packed. Of course, there is a digital ticking clock.

The set piece locations include the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge, both boring in their familiarity. There is an endless slapstick chase scene on the streets of San Francisco, complete with a stupid sheriff, and a break-in at city hall says a lot about the lack of imagination: Bond reduced to rifling through dusty cabinets in the hell of municipal bureaucracy.

Roberts is saddled with perhaps the worst-written Bond girl role in the series. She is relegated to repeatedly hanging off edges and shrieking "JAMES!" for help, in a display of brain-dead scripting meeting the actress-as-decoration.

But the nadir is reached when a main character grabs a machine gun and mercilessly mows down hundreds of extras. A once-proud series based on wit, smarts, charm, exotic locations and genuine sexual magnetism - in short, the best of everything in the imaginary spy world - is reduced to an emotionless, featureless, perfunctory and derivative slaughterhouse.

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Movie Review: Catch Me If You Can (2002)

A light-hearted chase drama inspired by real events, Catch Me If You Can is treat for the eyes and the mind. The story of master con artist and cheque fraudster Frank Abagnale Jr. is a breezy tale told with a bouncy spirit.

In New York of the early 1960s, 16 year old Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) grows up idolizing his father Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken), an independently-minded businessman who constantly runs into money problems. When Frank Sr.'s marriage to passionate Frenchwoman Paula (Nathalie Baye) falls apart due to his financial difficulties and her infidelity, Frank Jr.'s life is shattered and he goes on the run. Having inherited his father's instincts for charming people into parting with money, Frank survives by cashing fraudulent cheques at various banks.

Frank Abagnale Sr.: Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out. Gentlemen, as of this moment, I am that second mouse.

Wanting more, driven by a desire to recover all that his Dad lost, and appreciating the power of a slick uniform, Frank pretends to be a Pan Am co-pilot. He starts forging payroll cheques, and is soon flying around the country, amassing a fortune in cash, and leaving a long trail of victimized banks in his wake. His exploits grab the attention of FBI bank fraud agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), who starts a years-long pursuit. But the FBI man is always half a step behind the con artist, and Frank has more tricks up his sleeve and new personas to disappear into.

Directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the book by the same name co-written by Abagnale, Catch Me If You Can is an engaging, remarkably entertaining film. Approximately 80 percent based on reality (according to Abagnale himself), the film focuses on one kid on the run possessing extraordinary self-confidence and one dour FBI agent determined to catch up to him. By avoiding all buddy movie and action cliches that could have crept into the narrative, Spielberg and his screenwriter Jeff Nathanson produce an original, funny and character-driven film, with the momentum generated by intellect and the human condition.

Frank Sr.: You know why the Yankees always win, Frank?
Frank Jr.: 'Cause they have Mickey Mantle?
Frank Sr.: No, it's 'cause the other teams can't stop staring at those damn pinstripes.

It's takes a perpetrator and a victim to run a successful con, and the film delights in showing the various ways Frank is able to either get what he wants or escape from sticky situations using confidence and the razzle dazzle of image and props. He's both the struggling mouse and the Yankees in pinstripes. Whether it's a Pan Am pilot's outfit, a doctor's white coat, a shiny pendant, or a wallet full of junk, he distracts and sweet talks in equal measure. He succeeds to the tune of millions in cash, even conniving to get a high class call girl to pay him for a night of pleasure.

Compared to real events the film overplays the two key relationships in Frank's life, and that's quite excusable because Spielberg knows what makes a good screen drama. Frank is provided with regular touch points with his father, whose life is on an endless downward spiral that only he fails to see. Frank Jr.'s motivation is to set all that went wrong in his dad's life, but for Frank Sr. the struggle is the life, and he takes joy not in escaping the bucket, but watching his son churn for another day.

The in-pursuit relationship between Frank and Carl is also enriched for cinematic purposes (and to provide Tom Hanks with more to do). The film features Christmas time phone calls between the two men to affirm the emptiness and broken homes they share, and to build a bond that comes to fruition in the final act.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks are both excellent, smoothly building complex characters continuously longing for something just out of reach. Christopher Walken gives Frank Sr. the doomed air of a smart man determined to fight a system that merciless crushes him into nothingness, but that is no reason for him to stop the fight.  The rich cast also features small but telling roles for Martin Sheen, James Brolin, Amy Adams and Jennifer Garner.

Catch Me If You Can features a stunning throwback opening credit sequence by Kuntzel+Deygas that recalls the best of Saul Bass. A whimsical, curious John Williams progressive jazz music score enhances the 1960s vibe.

Cool, creative and captivating, Catch Me If You Can is a cat and mouse game at its finest.

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Movie Review: Domino (2005)

A case of all style and almost incomprehensible substance, Domino dazzles the senses in a vain attempt to cover up the lack of any meaningful content in the turgid story of a female bounty hunter.

The bloodied but defiant Domino Harvey (Keira Knightley) is being questioned by FBI agent Taryn Mills (Lucy Liu) about a $10 million heist that has gone terribly wrong. Domino recounts her life story. The daughter of actor Laurence Harvey, she was drifting through life until she joined the team of grizzled bounty hunter Ed (Mickey Rourke) and his sidekick Choco (Edgar Ramirez). Domino quickly establishes a reputation as fearless and resourceful and she catches the attention of television producer Mark Heiss (Christopher Walken), who launches a reality show about the bounty hunters despite the objections of Domino's mother Sophie (Jacqueline Bisset).

Ed's main client is bail bondsman Claremont (Delroy Lindo), whose mistress Lateesha (Mo'Nique), an employee of the Department of Motor Vehicles, needs $300,000 for her granddaughter's operation. Claremont concocts a plan to steal $10 million from Las Vegas tycoon Drake Bishop (Dabney Coleman), with the intention of having his squad of bounty hunters "recover" the money in exchange for a $300,000 finders fee. When Lateesha's illicit licensing activities land her in trouble, she unintentionally gets the teenaged children of mob boss Anthony Cigliutti (Stanley Kamel) involved in the heist. Domino and her crew get dropped into a mess of an explosive situation, starting with an armed and bloody standoff at the mobile home of getaway driver Locus Fender and his shotgun-toting mother Edna.

Director Tony Scott starts with the true story of the real Domino Harvey, but uses her only as a loose inspiration. Screenwriter Richard Kelly creates an out of control narrative that tries and fails to emulate Tarantino's intertwining multi-character story construction. Instead Scott allows his worst trickster impulses to take over, resulting in a film that calls attention to its director in every scene. Domino is a land of spaced-out narration, repeated snippets of dialogue, editing that is in turns jarring and dreamy, and vivid green and yellow colours dominating the screen.

The film's visual style is either distractingly overwrought or artistically stunning, but regardless cannot compensate for a story that is a strange mix of ludicrous and vacant. With the cardboard characters offering no wit and eliciting no sympathy, the gory violence and ridiculous shootouts carry no impact. It really does not matter who among the snide collection of lowlifes lives or dies from scene to scene. The entire reality television show sub-plot is a needless exercise in unfunny bloat, and the endlessly hesitant romance between Domino and Choco never gets past the stuttering stage. The complicated heist component of the film then arrives late and starts to veer into unfathomable territory, transforming Domino's 127 minutes of running time into a true endurance test.

Keira Knightley delivers a suitably glum performance, the rich girl who takes up big guns to compensate for an absentee famous daddy. Mickey Rourke is the only cast member trying to inject a human depth to his character, but the script offers him little to work with.

Domino is a jazzy feast for the eyes, but otherwise tumbles with an unseemly clatter.

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Movie Review: King Of New York (1990)

A stylishly gloomy crime drama, King Of New York layers on the artsy violence but leaves behind any reason to care about its principal characters.

Crime lord Frank White (Christopher Walken) is released from prison and immediately heads back to New York to regain control of his empire. His gang members, led by Jimmy Jump (Laurence Fishburne), pave the way for Frank's return by killing rival gang leaders El Zapa and King Tito, the former in a phone booth outside a high class brothel, the latter in a hotel room.

Frank then applies pressure on Mafia boss Arty Clay and Triad leader Larry Wong, demanding a cut of their business. Clay refuses to cooperate, and Wong attempts to negotiate. Both pay a heavy price for failing to comply with Frank's wishes.With Frank's lawyer Jennifer (Janet Julian) keeping him and his men beyond the reach of the courts, police detectives Bishop (Victor Argo), Gilley (David Caruso) and Flanigan (Wesley Snipes) grow increasingly frustrated. Gilley advocates going outside the law to deal with Frank, adding fuel to the wave of violence sweeping across the city.

An independent production directed by Abel Ferrara with an emphasis on wild action set-pieces, King Of New York packs plenty of intense shoot-outs, chases, and general scenes of carnage and violence into a relatively short 106 minutes of running time. This is a film that transforms New York into a war zone where hundreds of bullet rounds are sprayed around on a nightly basis, as gangsters kill each other with savagery driven by hatred and the imperative need to control the drug trade.

Ferrara delivers all the brutality with an eye on moody and stylish packaging, the action often happening at night, the gangsters largely emotionless as they kill to the beat of rap music and under the toxic influence of drugs, with random gyrating women always within reach.

It's all wildly entertaining but also not even remotely realistic, and as an exercise in sleek crime depiction King Of New York is hampered by an almost complete absence of character introduction or development. Frank White remains an almost robotic blank slate, save for one quite unconvincing late speech about his criminality being less criminal than his rivals. A half-baked sub-plot about Frank channeling funds to an inner-city hospital project holds promise but is underdeveloped.

The secondary characters fare worse, and next to nothing is known about all the other crime bosses and the three police detectives. But Laurence (billed as Larry) Fishburne does get to let loose in a pretty insane depiction of the trigger-happy Jimmy Jump, a man so far gone on the culture of drugs and violence that he is actually enjoying the madness that comes with hurtling towards oblivion.

King Of New York dances to the beat of anarchic artistry, but beyond all the bloodshed the king has few other clothes on.

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Movie Review: America's Sweethearts (2001)

A romantic comedy and a satire on the business of marketing movies, America's Sweethearts has enough talent to amble along, but not enough zest to rise above genre conventions.

Publicist Lee Phillips (Billy Crystal) is tasked by studio head Dave Kingman (Stanley Tucci) to organize and host a successful junket for the latest film starring Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Eddie Thomas (John Cusack). Frequent co-stars, married to each other, and fan favourites, Gwen and Eddie can longer stand each other, the relationship ruptured by Gwen taking on the hunky Hector (Hank Azaria) as a lover, leaving Eddie an emotional wreck. Lee connects with Gwen's sister and main handler Kiki (Julia Roberts) to try and stage a reconciliation to salvage the film.

Matters are not helped by eccentric director Hal Weidmann (Christopher Walken) refusing to submit a copy of the new movie until the last minute, meaning that Lee has to organize the junket and occupy the press with no certainty of having a product to show them. With Kiki's help Lee uses every trick in the book to revive interest in the Gwen and Eddie collaboration. Both attend the media launch at a hotel in the Nevada desert, leading to unexpected romantic complications that threaten to derail Lee's intentions, while Weidmann's late appearance adds an unexpected dose of chaos.

Directed by Joe Roth with Billy Crystal co-producing and co-writing, America's Sweethearts offers a steady level of enjoyment, an excellent cast and many good laughs. It is also broadly predictable, offers little depth and hardly any meaningful character evolution. There is a vague old fashioned whiff about the film, a sense of throwback to the screwball era when banter trumped irony.

The film's brightest moments are courtesy of the secondary characters. Some of the best laughs come courtesy of Gwen's dog, who effortlessly steals the three scenes that he's in. In a brief role, Christopher Walken as the conceited Hal Weidmann, a throwback to the mad genius era of directors, is also delicious. The character of Hector is over-the-top funny, and borders on something out of a cartoon.

Less interesting and much more familiar are the battles of the heart between Eddie, Gwen and Kiki, and overall there is more satire and comedy than romance in America's Sweethearts. Crystal gives his own Lee Phillips some good lines, the film offering a barrage of zingers targeting the depths to which publicists will go to promote a movie or obfuscate its lack of relevance. Outright lies, stroking star egos, and strategic leaks to the press are all in a day's work for Lee, as all publicity is good publicity to generate the necessary buzz. With no movie to offer, Lee puts the junk in junket and feeds the media a diet of celebrity gossip involving Eddie and Gwen. Hardly anyone notices that the movie event has no movie.

Meanwhile Cusack and Zeta-Jones play up stereotypes about celebrities primarily concerned with nursing their egos. Eddie is deeply damaged by Gwen's betrayal, spending months in recovery with faux wellness guru (Alan Arkin) serving up useless platitudes. Zeta-Jones is perfect as the star who genuinely, deeply, understands that the world and the sun revolve around her. Julia Roberts delivers the most engaging performance, Kiki having recently lost a lot of weight, growing tired of being bossed by her sister, and feeling empowered to pursue a long-term crush on the one man she thought she could never have.

America's Sweethearts is lighthearted fun sparked by pointed commentary about the film industry, with a stellar cast providing an attractive gloss of quality.

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Movie Review: Wedding Crashers (2005)

A raucous comedy, Wedding Crashers thrives within a clever premise that feeds themes of friendship, growing up, and meeting your match.

In Washington DC, John and Jeremy (Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn) are best friends and colleagues at work, where they mediate between married couples going through nasty divorces. Well into adulthood but still acting like college fratboys, they get their kicks by crashing weddings, enjoying unlimited food and drink, dancing the night away and picking up women revved-up by the idea of idyllic romance for hot one-night stands.

After a hectic season of wedding crashing, John begins to question the juvenile lifestyle. But Jeremy insists on one last wedding: the daughter of William Cleary (Christopher Walken), the very wealthy Secretary of the Treasury, is getting married. Despite John's protestations they crash the wedding and a subsequent Cleary family weekend, and unexpectedly get entangled in complex relationships with two of Cleary's daughters. John falls in love with the free spirited Claire (Rachel McAdams), who is already in a relationship with the insufferable Sack Lodge (Bradley Cooper). Jeremy seduces the wild youngest daughter Gloria (Isla Fisher), not knowing exactly how much trouble he is getting into: she is more lustful than he is, and plays him like a cheap fiddle. Meanwhile, Cleary's wife Kathleen "Kitty Kat" (Jane Seymour) is prowling all available men to get her cougarish kicks.

Wedding Crashers is often hilarious. Director David Dobkin quickly establishes the unique yet rational premise, and allows his two lead actors to let loose. John and Jeremy behave like teenagers who have found the magical key to a life of unlimited partying and casual sex with beautiful women. But the film succeeds well beyond its title. After the initial montage of wild crashing, the story settles down to what's next for the two men, and the challenge of finding their way out of unevolved and circular habits to launch into something resembling adulthood.

Vaughn and Wilson make for a terrific pair of underdeveloped men, John and Jeremy unwilling to let go of their youth despite John's growing doubt that they should really be beyond immature antics. Wilson gets the more thoughtful role, and imparts sensitivity to go along with fading boyishness. Vaughn is more driven to hang on to the past, Jeremy living his life according to an arcane code of caveman behaviour developed by the legendary Chazz (Will Ferrell, who makes a late, uncredited appearance).

John is therefore more open to fundamental change and once he sets eyes on Claire he can start to see his way to a different and better future. Jeremy is generally blind to any life that compromises his instinctive need to have uncontrolled fun, and it takes a large wallop to the side of the head in the form of Gloria to knock him off his default path. The shifting dynamics between the two men is at the heart of the movie, as their deep friendship is tested by diverging expectations.

Rachel McAdams is her usual appealing girl next door, although in this case a very rich girl next door, and McAdams tends to smile too much throughout the film. More fiery is Isla Fisher who creates in Gloria a borderline nymphomaniac, an impulsive, uninhibited, and fun-loving woman, the kind who can singe Jeremy with her own afterburners.

The script by Steve Faber and Bob Fisher populates the Cleary family with weird and wonderful members, including an uncensored grandmother (Ellen Albertini Dow), a creepy artist son (Keir O'Donnell), the lustful Kitty Kat and, most troublesome for John's pursuit of Claire, her intended beau Sack Lodge. In a pre-stardom role, Bradley Cooper goes all out to make Sack a loathsome rich jock full of self-entitlement and just enough social talent to fool many people most of the time. They combine to create a madcap family with enough pitfalls to trip up the best that John and Jeremy can offer in terms of infiltrative deceit and subterfuge.

The Wedding Crashers are definitely uninvited, but prove to be spectacularly funny and successful guests.

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